In the Media

Sky News Australia – 25 May 2025

On Wednesday night, Israeli embassy employees Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were murdered by a terrorist in the heart of Washington — just ten minutes from the White House.

They were not murdered for their political views, their stance on Gaza, or their opinion of the Israeli government.

They were murdered because someone believed that supporting the Palestinian cause meant killing Jews – and what better place to find them than outside an event at the city’s Jewish Museum?

While we should all be shocked by this horrific and terrible act, we cannot claim to be surprised.

This hatred didn’t begin last night in Washington — or even after October 7. It has been building for decades.

But October 7 unleashed it from the shackles of decency. Like a wildfire, it spread far and wide, infecting whole societies with the pathogens of hatred.

Across the United States and around the world, we have seen protest camps at universities and colleges demonising Israel and Jews — intimidating Jewish students, preventing them from attending classes, harassing and even physically attacking them.

We have seen Jewish diners spat on in restaurants. We have seen Jewish property vandalized. We have seen the walls of Jewish institutions, including schools, defaced with graffiti calling for the death of Jews.

Like something out of a dark dystopian future, we have witnessed anarchy in the streets of great cities, where demonstrators praise the Hamas murderers of October 7 — hailing rapists and killers who kidnapped babies and murdered Holocaust survivors as modern-day folk heroes.

It is difficult to comprehend that such elements exist in civilised societies like Australia, the US, and the UK – but exist they do.

A report by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel revealed a staggering 340% global rise in antisemitism over the past two years. In Canada, the increase was 562% — a quarter of which were violent incidents. France saw a 350% rise, the UK 450%, and Australia reported a 387% increase, including the arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, where a number of worshippers narrowly escaped with their lives.

The numbers are simply staggering.

Unfortunately, too often, weak governments have allowed this poison to fester and grow by refusing to crack down on the perpetrators of this hatred—granting them a brazen sense of impunity.

It became acceptable to chant slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a call for the eradication of Israel and genocide of its people. Students on campuses and protesters in major cities have called for “globalizing the intifada” — a direct call for violent attacks against Jews worldwide. This is no theoretical plea for resistance; it is a very real incitement to violence, with very real consequences such as those we are witnessing today

And it is not only protesters on the streets who are instigating and encouraging this hatred. It is also those in positions of influence — in governments and international organizations — whose lies and accusations against Israel give cover to the demonisation of both the Jewish state and the overwhelming majority of Jews who back its right to exist.

On Tuesday, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, claimed in a BBC radio interview that 14,000 babies would die in Gaza within 48 hours if aid did not reach them in time. This was proven to be an outright lie. Yet the claim was widely reported in international media and cited during a debate in the British Parliament.

The danger of such lies is that they echo the blood libels of the past, such as in the Middle Ages, when Jews were falsely accused of killing children and using their blood for Jewish rituals.

Could the perpetrator of the murders in Washington have seen this report and felt compelled to act on it?

That this terrible deed happened in Washington, DC – the heart of the liberal-democratic Western world – should send a shiver through anyone who cherishes the values of freedom, decency, and mutual respect.

Because if it can happen in the heart of the free world, it can happen anywhere.

While many do stand with the Jewish people, Jewish communities around the world are still feeling justifiably anxious. And as is so often the case, security will need to be reviewed and upgraded.

It is a devastating failure of the civilised world that Jews once again find themselves in the crosshairs of resurgent violent antisemitism.

Still, amid all the analysis and debate that will follow, we cannot lose sight of the human cost: a young man and a young woman, ready to start their lives together with hearts full of love were robbed of that future by someone with a heart full of hate.

Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).